<p>yes Bengal, glad you were able to change your plans and be with him. </p>
<p>RtR- tough choice… how did he feel after taking the test? Since he hadn’t prepped and the format is fairly different, maybe get him the Real ACTs (red book) over the summer and have him do some of those and familiarize himself and then retake. June might be too soon if you want him to concentrate on GPA, although if school is out for you he might have time. If there is potential for a point or two uptick, that might be worth it. All the subscores are close together, there isn’t a glaring one section to concentrate on.</p>
<p>I had an interesting morning, there was a coffee for parents of 9th graders. Yeah, we did talk about our lovely 9th graders, but before too long the focus shifted to older siblings :o There was one who had a grad last year, and two with seniors, and me and one of the ones with seniors also had a junior. One of the seniors got into every school he applied to, and has not made a decision, nor even eliminated any yet. The mom is pulling her hair out. Other senior also hasn’t made a decision. One theme between them and also the mom of 08 grad said is that the kids weren’t pushed to put reachy reach schools onto their list, the mom with the acceptances to all thinks they should have added more (or even some) reaches. This is the impression I had gotten from the school myself, that they tend to steer the kids to more comfortable choices. Also got some details on graduation logistics, in all a good time I usually don’t take the time from work to go to these but this one was a short walk from home so I went and was glad for the socializing.</p>
<p>DB, congratulations! That’s great news. I’m sorry I missed you at Dickinson on Monday – my mom (has cancer) had a very bad night and we couldn’t leave in the morning. I read your review and it sounded great. I hope we do get to visit.</p>
<p>We decided on the spur of the moment to go to Drew Monday afternoon because it’s a half hour away. Nice school, but not for D, so it’s definitely off the list. I’m a little disheartened about that because I thought it was a sure thing. We’ve visited 5 schools so far and three are definitely off the list and two don’t thrill her. So much for my early start.</p>
<p>32 on the ACT, not sure of the breakdown. She wants to take again to put paid to it since she was so off-balance and frazzled on the last one. The score is fine for her aspirations, but she would like to take one more time and bring her watch so she can time herself better. I told her to do whatever she wants.</p>
<p>Congrats to the other posters on their kids fine scores. DD doesn’t have to go until 10 today so is not out of bed yet… I’ll have to wait to see how she did …</p>
<p>ReadytoRoll, I wouldn’t let him study for the ACT to the detriment of his GPA, but if he thinks he could do better on a second try - why not? Perhaps he should do the ACT next fall after studying in the summer and make sure that he finishes up as strong as possible gradewise this spring.</p>
<p>My son is realizing that he just can’t do violin at the level his teacher would like this spring - his grades are more important. He’s in a position where he might get three solid A’s which for a kid who has been a bit inconsistent in the grade department would be big, especially given the schools he likes.</p>
<p>Bengal Mom - sorry to hear about your FIL, but I’m glad he’s ok now, and that you were able to get to him so quickly. </p>
<p>zoosermom - I’m sorry about your mom as well - and hope that she’s doing a little better now.</p>
<p>Congrats on your D’s score. My D took it back in Dec. and got a 33, and she’s planning to retake it in June. I seriously doubt that she’ll fit in any prep before then - but I’d at least like her to go over the questions she got wrong the first time around since we have the score report/questions.</p>
<p>May I ask what you didn’t like about Drew? That’s a school I was considering taking my D to visit, so I’m curious. </p>
<p>scualum - good luck to your D.</p>
<p>mathmom - I agree about not letting kids study for the ACT or SAT to the detriment of their GPAs.</p>
<p>LImom, Drew is a lovely, lovely school, but not a fit for D. First of all, the campus (called the “Campus in the forest” or something) is very large, very hilly and very natural. There were dead leaves all over and it wasn’t manicured. D was off-put by all the trees which she thought were a little depressing without leaves. However, she pointed out that when in full foliage, there’d be no sun anywhere on the campus which also bothered her. I could see it as being very dark. None of the students we saw were friendly or seemed happy and there were a lot of snarky comments yelled at us. There was also a sexual assault recently, so the wanted posters are up all over the campus. The real issue was that the tour guide was simply awful. Silly, giddy, uninformed. She told us repeatedly that she wasn’t allowed to wear flip-flops but did anyway, so the tour was taken up with her losing the flip flops and finally falling on her backside at the end of the tour. It was really quite tiresome. Also, the people touring with us seemed to be either very wealthy and snooty or just plain weird. It might be a great place on another day with another tour, but D won’t be going back.</p>
<p>Oh, for perspective. The guide said that she loved Drew because it was collegey and she wanted that rather than a country club feel. Daughter said she “wants a country club” where things are manicured and maintained. Take that however you think!</p>
<p>Thanks, zoosermom. I’ve been thinking that Drew might be a possible safer option for D, and was wondering about it. Sounds like a disappointing visit for your family - what a shame. Thanks for the feedback - I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Congrats to all on ACT scores! Sounds like folks are fairly happy so far.</p>
<p>mathmom – S2 is in a similar position grade-wise. FINALLY broke through in AP Calc, so if he can pull off the rest of the semester the way he did 3rd quarter, he will have a very strong finish. Poor guys feels like he had NO spring break between the college trips, trauma and worry over our dog, and the pile of HW his teachers assigned (as they were telling the kids to “relax and take it easy!”).</p>
<p>The good news, though, is that he likes the flagship well enough to apply, including over a couple of other schools he had considered. Said he’d like to get some merit $$ and into one of the special programs to help make it smaller, but at least we have a plan and a likely admit that does not cost $50k.</p>
<p>Wow zoosermom. Kudos to you and your D for sticking it out through the visit. I think my kids and I would have run. And students were yelling snarky comments at you? Amazing… Will you be letting the admissions office know about your tour?</p>
<p>Certainly a less than desirable tour!!! For what it is worth, I emailed the University of Washington after the dreadful tour DD and I had - and got a note back this morning apologizing and indicating that they were understaffed that day. I do think that sending a note describing the experience - while not helping my DD - is the only way that schools can know when we have bad experiences so that others will not experience the same thing.</p>
<p>I’m a little confused (I should make that my CC name!) about what you mean by it being fine for her aspirations but this is S’s first time with the ACTs so I’m probably just, wait for it, confused.</p>
<p>I thought with the ACT that the highest score was a 35 and that 32 and above put you in the top 2% of test takers? Wouldn’t that be good enough for anyone’s aspirations?</p>
<p>Scualum, that’s good advice. Maybe I should say something because several families peeled off the tour and ditched.</p>
<p>Pugmadkate, what I meant was that she’s not looking at selective colleges so she doesn’t need to be up there around 34-36, so I don’t care whether she takes it again. She wants to because she came out of the test upset and disgruntled and wants to see how well she could have done. It’s a great score and I’m proud. I’m sorry if that didn’t come out.</p>
<p>BengalMom - I hope your FIL improves quickly.</p>
<p>Zoosermom - Sorry to miss you, too. Hope your mom feels better. Hopefully you’ll make your way to Dickinson…it definitely has a country club feel. :)</p>
<p>Apparently some of the students are bored at USC today:</p>
<p>Dear Colleagues,</p>
<p>You may have noticed the results of a prank initiated campus-wide this morning. The prank involved people in biohazard suits, “caution” and “danger” tape, and suggestion that the campus was in the midst of a health alert.</p>
<p>We are working with the Department of Public Safety to deal with the prank. In the meantime, please be assured that everything is fine, and please make sure this message is communicated widely to our community so that potential concerns are minimized or eliminated.</p>
<p>Thank you,</p>
<p>This is less amusing than it sounds since USC did have a real health alert early in the term when a number of students came down with major flu symptoms.</p>
<p>At least my DH is not complicit, since he commented the other day that based on the results from a recent mid-term, he’d have to adjust the difficult level on the next one.</p>
<p>zoosermom, I did not read it that you were not proud of her. I just needed some clarity on the scoring. I keep forgetting that being in the 98 or 99% can actually be not high enough. It’s such a strange concept to me, still. </p>
<p>S is not looking at MIT or the Ivies, so hopefully we can “one and done” once he gets the dang score!</p>
<p>FAP, I know the kids who go to USC are smart but that prank was dumb. In this day and age, who knows what kind of reaction that could have provoked. I need to remind my son that any prank that gets him kicked out college results in a bill for his tuition thus far. Oy.</p>
<p>We’ve actually reached the point of having two safeties on the list and nothing else. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Snark-face-brat-child has not liked anything so far. I’m hoping Dickinson will at some point catch her attention.</p>
<p>May I second scualum’s suggestion to write back comments on your tours? When I heard what happened to scualum, I also wrote to the UW tour coordinators, as I’m a double alum from the UW, my DH is an alum and we make contributions. I also got a response back.</p>
<p>We went on tours to Berkeley and Stanford last week, signing up on line for both of them. Berkeley already sent a quick, on line survey for me to fill out, which I did. I complimented them on their organizational skills, as they told us they were expecting over 500 visitors just on that day alone (last Friday) due to spring break. I’m also thinking the tanking economy has likely driven up the tour numbers at great flagship unis like Berkeley. (Since we’re in SoCal, we already visited UCLA so I don’t know what they crowds are like during spring break time for CA high schools but I expect it would be similar to Cal.)</p>
<p>Oh, zoosermom, I put my mother through the same thing. I could just die of shame thinking back on it. Someday she will come to appreciate your efforts. You may have to wait until she has kids looking at colleges but the day will come!</p>
<p>Congrats everyone on the ACTs! I’ve never taken them and don’t really want to… but they seem to be consistently better for people having trouble with the SATs. Non-monopolies are always good.</p>
<p>I get up at 6am on weekdays, and although the target bedtime is 10, the realistic bedtime is midnight.</p>
<p>ZM - Look on the bright side, you could be stuck with two super-reaches and nothing else.</p>